"Amongst all those passions which ride men's souls none so jade and tire them out as envy and jealousy; theire journey is longer than any of the rest, they bate seldomer, and commonly ride double, for sure a man cannot bee jealous of his Mistrisse without at the same time envious of his rivall."

"A thought for Breeding would a Travellour be, / The several Countries in the Brain to see; / Spurr'd with Desires he was, Booted with Hope, / His Cap Curios'ty, Patience was his Cloak: / Thus Suited, strait a Horse he did provide, / And Strong Imagination got to Ride; / Which Sadled with Ambitio...

"For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ;...

"But that, whose Sound, in the Pelîack Cave, / A Bridle to the Minds of Heroes gave, / And great Achilles Thoughts, the Centaure lov'd, / And when, upon the Strings, his Finger mov'd, / Hell's, or the Ocean's Fury 'twould allay."

"But that benefit which I consider most in it [rhyme], because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy: for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like an high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment."

"The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it ...

"'Tis so wild [Wildblood's heart], that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates."